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Once Upon A City: From police corruption to cracking key cases

North America’s first municipal police force has colourful history

Detectives with gas masks and guns cautiously approach the Bank of Montreal’s Yonge and Front Street branch in 1962. Three men who ambushed 43 bank employees escaped during a gun and tear gas battle between police and a teller. (Toronto Star Archives)

Members of the first Toronto Police motorcycle squad, from left, Charles Anderson, Fred Finch, John Hicks and George Dickenson, stand proudly next to their bikes in 1912. They were tasked with enforcing the 15 mph (24 km/h) speed limit and often wore business suits for camouflage.
(Toronto Star Archives)

Toronto police practice marksmanship in 1940, though the Star noted that “they seldom need guns.” Here are P.C. Morrison, P.C. Meade (with a Tommy gun that had never yet been used in Toronto), P.C. Kerr with pump shotgun, and P.C. Umphrey at Cowan Ave. station range.
(Toronto Star Archives)

The Court Street Police Headquarters, located on the north side of Court St, between Toronto and Church streets, was built in 1874.
(Toronto Star Archives)

This 1935 photo shows Sgt. Pounney of Toronto police inspecting a new radio transmitter in the Stewart Building, at 149 College St., which served as Toronto Police Headquarters from 1931 to 1957. (Toronto Star Archives)

Henry James Grasett was Toronto’s longest-serving police chief, in office from 1886 until 1920. During his tenure he introduced the arming of patrol officers, bicycles for patrol use (a first in North America) and presided over the hiring of the first two female police officers in 1913. Here he is pictured receiving the key to a new police signal system in 1930, with then chief Dennis Draper to his right.
(City of Toronto Archives)

A police switchboard in 1968.
(Toronto Star Archives)

Women police officers weren’t allowed to carry guns until 1974. “Twenty years ago, policewomen had to be quick at the typewriter. Now they wear guns, drive patrol cars in the battle against crime,” an article on May 3, 1975 said.
(Toronto Star Archives)

This photo from 1977 shows tense police constables with their weapons trained on rear windows of a house on Brunswick Ave., where a man with a rifle refused to come out. The three officers, who are in alley behind the house are (front to back) Hugh Muir, Rick McKnight and Joe Maggiola. They are waiting for fellow policemen to flush the man out of the house. The man was subdued after tear gas was fired into second floor of home. (Bob Olson/Toronto Star)

After three years tracking down criminals, police dog Cato was forced into retirement by diseased hips in 1993. Cato, with former partner, Const. Stephen McEdwards, got a boost when he was named police dog of the year.
(Dick Loek/Toronto Star Archives)

A lineup shows how Toronto police officers' uniforms changed through the years. From left, the 1875, 1880, 1930, 1947 and 1980s styles are shown. York Region Constable Brett Kemp, far right, displays what was believed to be the upcoming uniform in this montage created in 2000.
(PHOTOS BY TORONTO POLICE MUSEUM AND TORONTO STAR/MONTAGE BY TORONTO STAR)

Imagine it’s 1911 and you’re dying to take your new Model T out and tear up the Toronto streets – maybe even exceed the speed limit of 15 m.p.h. (24 km/h)!

Well, my friend, you would have been up against the likes of George “Sneaky Dick” Dickenson, a member of the Toronto Police Force’s first motorcycle squad set up to enforce the speed limit.

In those days, the motorcycle constables often wore business suits for camouflage and Dickenson added to this by “always wearing a carnation” in his lapel.

This is one of the fascinating facts you’ll learn about early police at the Toronto Police Museum & Discovery Centre on the main floor of police headquarters on College St.

Members of the first Toronto Police motorcycle squad, from left, Charles Anderson, Fred Finch, John Hicks and George Dickenson, stand proudly next to their bikes in 1912. They were tasked with enforcing the 15 mph (24 km/h) speed limit and often wore business suits for camouflage.

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A not-for-profit charity operates the 3,000-square-foot museum, which is open to the public and is filled with photos, historical data, profiles, colorful anecdotes, actual artefacts from high-profile past crimes, real uniforms from over the years and tools of the trade, such as handcuffs, batons and more. There’s even a recreation of an early 20th century Toronto police station, including a 1920 poster regarding missing Toronto millionaire, Ambrose Small. His 1919 disappearance has never been solved.

The museum gives highlights from the long and fascinating history of Toronto policing, going back to the early 1800s when the city was known as “Muddy York.” There’s much to tell.

York incorporated as the City of Toronto in 1834, the same year the city created the first municipal police force in North America. In the 1830s Toronto was a “dangerous place with drunken brawls, fire-prone wooden buildings and cholera-causing sewage in the streets,” according to museum information.

The Court Street Police Headquarters, located on the north side of Court St, between Toronto and Church streets, was built in 1874.

In 1835, the city had five full time constables to police about 1,850 people. The museum doesn’t offer a lot of detail about the early 1800 days of the Toronto Police, which were not particularly stellar. City alderman had the power to appoint anyone as a constable and they used police to suppress opposition candidates, according to various historians, including Toronto author and Ryerson instructor Peter Vronsky, who has studied the era and posted a detailed history of events on his website (www.petervronsky.org ).

Police also took sides with members of the Protestant Orange Order when they had altercations with Irish Catholic factions. The province launched an inquiry into police behaviour and in 1841 it issued a scathing report that described Toronto police as “formidable engines of oppression.” In 1858, the police chief and most of the force were fired.

A lineup shows how Toronto police officers' uniforms changed through the years. From left, the 1875, 1880, 1930, 1947 and 1980s styles are shown. York Region Constable Brett Kemp, far right, displays what was believed to be the upcoming uniform in this montage created in 2000.

In 1859, the province made it mandatory that independent police boards do the hiring and this resulted in former British Army Captain William Stratton Prince becoming the Chief Constable of Toronto Police. A Toronto Police Museum biography credits Prince, in charge from 1859-1873, with quickly changing the “collection of unkempt policemen into a highly disciplined body of law enforcers.”

Prince was followed by Chief Frank Draper (1874-1886), who believed in three essentials of good policing: “public support, mobility and communication.’ His rules for conduct were typical of the prim Victorian era. Consider one of his rules highlighted at the museum: “In taking their meals, the Constables are not to take off their coats, as this would be considered an act of gross indecency.” Officers on duty were also forbidden from gossiping with anyone.

Henry James Grasett was Toronto’s longest-serving police chief, in office from 1886 until 1920. During his tenure he introduced the arming of patrol officers, bicycles for patrol use (a first in North America) and presided over the hiring of the first two female police officers in 1913. Here he is pictured receiving the key to a new police signal system in 1930, with then chief Dennis Draper to his right.

Former army officer Henry James Grasett became chief in late 1886 and held that title for 34 years, the city’s longest serving chief, overseeing a period of great inventions. During his tenure, he introduced the arming of patrol officers, bicycles for patrol use in 1894 (a first in North America), the photographing of criminals, telephones in the stations and motorized police vans and a greater use of cars.

In 1888, just four years after the first electrical street lights were installed in Toronto, Grasett saw to the installation of 60 electrical “call boxes” on city streets. A sergeant could signal officers by sounding a gong and flashing a red light on top of the call box. Before this, a sergeant had to rely on passersby to get a message to a policeman on his beat.

Women police officers weren’t allowed to carry guns until 1974. “Twenty years ago, policewomen had to be quick at the typewriter. Now they wear guns, drive patrol cars in the battle against crime,” an article on May 3, 1975 said.

Grasett also presided over the hiring of the first two female police officers in 1913 (the museum notes that women police officers weren’t allowed to carry guns until 1974 and then only in their handbags.)

When Grasett died in 1930, in his 84th year, the Toronto Star obituary noted that while he was a “strict disciplinarian” Grasett was “noted for his fairness and kindness of heart . . .”

The name Adolphus Payne may still register with a lot of Torontonians. The former Staff Sergeant joined the force in 1930 and had a 44-year-career, “responsible for the arrest of more high-profile criminals” than any other officer in Toronto police history. Indeed, it was Detective “Dolph” Payne who snuck into the hideout of escaped bank robber Eddie Boyd and arrested him at gunpoint in 1951.

Toronto police practice marksmanship in 1940, though the Star noted that “they seldom need guns.” Here are P.C. Morrison, P.C. Meade (with a Tommy gun that had never yet been used in Toronto), P.C. Kerr with pump shotgun, and P.C. Umphrey at Cowan Ave. station range.

By 1935 a museum placard notes that “Toronto police had acquired a “fleet of especially fast cars known as fliers.” They were equipped with bulletproof glass and one-way radios, which would allow dispatcher messages, installed on the steering columns. Two-way communications systems were introduced in the 1940s. There would be many more advances in communication and investigation over the next few decades.

One of the most fascinating areas of the museum includes a number of display cases containing actual artefacts and evidence from past investigations.

For instance, you can see a mannequin head used for target practice by members of the Boyd Gang, bank robbers in the 1940s and ’50s. Also on view is the artificial leg of gang member Leonard Jackson, which hid a saw blade used in one of the gang’s two Don Jail escapes.

This photo from 1977 shows tense police constables with their weapons trained on rear windows of a house on Brunswick Ave., where a man with a rifle refused to come out. The three officers, who are in alley behind the house are (front to back) Hugh Muir, Rick McKnight and Joe Maggiola. They are waiting for fellow policemen to flush the man out of the house. The man was subdued after tear gas was fired into second floor of home.

Another display case shows some of the evidence collected in the case of Arthur Lucas, a drug trafficker convicted of murder and executed Dec. 11, 1962. Lucas had bought heroin from a Toronto man, Therland Crater, and sold it to Detroit dealers, who later complained that the drugs had “more baking powder in them than Lucas’s mother’s Sunday biscuits.” An incensed Lucas went back to Crater and killed him and his girlfriend. In the melee, Lucas’s ring (displayed) flew off. It became part of the case that led to his conviction.

The museum is open Monday to Friday, 8:30 to 4 p.m. Admittance by donation. Call first, 416-808-7020 or email museum@torontopolice.on.ca

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